How Oligarchs Bought America—and How We Take It Back

America's oligarchs are selling the country for parts. What happens when the people finally reach a breaking point?

This week, Gaslit Nation is joined by Casey Michel, author of the new book United States of Oligarchy, for a chilling, and ultimately empowering, look at how extreme wealth, floods of money from our foreign adversaries, and decades of dismantled anti-corruption laws brought American democracy to the brink. Michel is a longtime investigator of kleptocracy and authoritarian influence sanctioned by Russia. His new book examines how America's wealthiest people have allied themselves with dictators while weakening democracy at home as major law firms and media jump aboard the gravy train.

At the center of our conversation is oligarchy poster child Jared Kushner and his extraordinary record of failing upward: from buying and hollowing out the once-revered New York Observer, to the disastrous $1.8 billion purchase of the ominous 666 Fifth Avenue, to the billions in foreign sovereign wealth invested in his private-equity firm after his years shaping American foreign policy–a grift he continues today as our shadow Secretary of State.

Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund invested $2 billion in Kushner's Affinity Partners shortly after he left the White House, even after the fund's own advisers reportedly raised serious concerns about the firm. Kushner had cultivated a close relationship with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), who killed dissident and Washington Post writer Jamal Khashoggi. Kushner even reportedly passed on sensitive intel about Khashoggi to MBS.

Casey explains how corporations accumulated political power, how post-Watergate anti-corruption reforms were dismantled, and why today's concentration of wealth makes the original Gilded Age look quaint. Most importantly, we discuss the reforms that could break oligarchic power and how ordinary people can take back the country from the Epstein Class.

Listen or watch now for a clear-eyed guide to who bought America, how they did it, and how we take it back.

In this week's bonus show, our conversation continues with the practical question: How do we smash an oligarchy? Casey examines the pressure building beneath America's kleptocratic system, the reforms still available to us, and what history tells us happens when ruling elites refuse to change.

Despair is what oligarchs want. Build your resilience, find your voice, find your power with Andrea's upcoming book, A Reasonable Guide for Unreasonable Women: 20 Steps to Find Your Purpose and Power in a World on Fire, out November 10.

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